Infancy - Lecture Notes - Child Psychology | PSY 4190, Study notes of Developmental Psychology

Download Infancy - Lecture Notes - Child Psychology | PSY 4190 and more Study notes Developmental Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 5 Infancy The Newborn’s Readiness for Life  Newborn reflexes – Survival: Breathing, eye blink, sucking, swallowing, rooting – Primitive: Babinski, swimming, grasping, stepping  Infant states: Levels of arousal  Developmental changes in infant states – Changes in sleep – The functions and course of crying  Developmental changes in crying – Methods of soothing a fussy baby  Feeding, diaper changing, rocking, stroking, singing lullabies, picking him or her up  Individual and cultural differences in soothability Measurement of Infant Eye Movements Infrared illuminators é 4 aaa . Mirror Mirror | Photos are Ss and relays Slide a computer A reproduc projectors mover Rear projection screen Infants Scan Facial Features Seven week old babies scan faces for certain features: High contrast borders Eyes “Which one do you like to look at?” The preference method Two stimuli are presented simultaneously to see whether infants will attend more to one of them than the other Robert Fantz”s looking chamber Infant Sensory Capabilities  Vision – Least developed sense in the newborn – Visual acuity of newborn: 20/600 – Lense does not accommodate well Infants Prefer Visual Patterns (Figure adapted with permission from “The Origin of Form Perception” by R. Fantz, 1961, Scientific American, 204, p 72. Copyright © 1961 by the Scientific American). Infant Sensory Capabilities  Hearing – Reactions to voices: Especially attentive to high- pitched feminine voices – Reactions to language: Infants can discriminate phonemes very early in life. – Consequences of hearing loss: Could hamper language development Perception of Three-Dimensional Space in Infancy  Size constancy – Recognizing that an object remains the same size even when its image on the retina becomes larger as the object moves closer, or smaller as the object moves farther away – Binocular vision enhances this capability. – Binocular vision emerges around 3 to 5 months of age.  Use of pictorial cues – 7-month-olds seem able to use pictorial cues, while 5- month-oldsdo not Perception of Three-Dimensional Space in Infancy (cont.)  Development of depth perception – Visual cliff experiment  Infants detect a difference between the deep and shallow sides.  Motor development and depth perception – Self-produced movement helps develop depth perception. Infant Perception in Perspective— and a Look Ahead  Perceptual learning in childhood: Gibson’s differentiation theory – Perceptual learning occurs when we actively explore and detect distinctive features.  Cultural influences on perception – Subtle, but important effects – Newborns are equipped to perceive "musicality" and to discriminate good music from bad music. – Humans learn not to hear certain phonemes if they are not distinctive to the language spoken. Basic Learning Processes  Individual now thinks, perceives, or reacts to the environment in a new way  Result of a person's experiences  Change is relatively permanent. Habituation: Early Evidence of Information-Processing and Memory  Process by which we stop attending or responding to a stimulus repeated over and over  Improves dramatically throughout the first year of life  Individual differences – Infants who habituate rapidly during the first six to eight months of life are quicker to understand and use language during the second year of life. Operant (or Instrumental) Conditioning  Four possible consequences of operant responses – Positive reinforcement: Stimulus added to increase response. – Negative reinforcement: Stimulus removed to increase response. – Positive punishment: Stimulus added to decrease response. – Negative punishment: Stimulus removed to decrease response.  Operant conditioning in infancy is at best limited in early infancy.  Infants can remember what they have learned.  The social significance of early operant learning is evident in infants and their caregivers. Response ‘Consequence Result which General Child emits produces Anouieomeor ee Affects the likelihood pales —_» that the response will principle a response consequence be repeates which . produces . which ous 1. Infant smiles when Attention and playful ____,, Increases the likelihood adult enters the room gestures from a caregiver that the infant will smile again to attract attention “ a i a i 4 -/ "N\ ie F ; 2. Child writes on wall Se A scolding and ran Fails to strengthen with crayons banishment to and will probably suppress the bedroom the act of writing on the wall a